


Curiosity

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 18:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18504778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So according to the Wiki page Jack was 18 when he died. Well what if he was a lot younger than that and still spent a majority if not all that time by himself?+5 He looks older than he actually is and his voice is deeper than most kids his age.+10 Pitch is subconsciously reminded of his daughter and adopts Jack a few years before his Guardianship comes in."This was a bit of a challenge because I wanted to write the bonus with Pitch, but if it’s before being a Guardian, then neither of them really has a good idea of how old Jack might have been. So that’s based on Pitch just guessing. It’s not one of Jack’s main concerns.





	Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 5/4/2015.

Pitch saw him first one winter night in North America, spinning and skating across an icy lake. He moved with the wind, letting it lift him when he spun, edging toward flight with every leap. Gravity had little hold on him, as did little else, or so Pitch guessed when he saw the lacy, feathery patterns spreading from the points where his bare feet touched the ice. Whoever he was, he wasn’t a human as Pitch knew them.  
  
Being a creature of fear didn’t stop Pitch from being curious, though he sometimes thought that logically, it should. He usually tried to avoid such thoughts, no matter how long he had to contemplate them, since if he was more than fear, if he had been more than fear, where was that  _more_  to be useful? Where could it grow? Where could it go? So now, watching the being on the ice, Pitch grew curious, and with no further thought, stepped forward to find out what he could.  
  
The boy, or so Pitch guessed, not being near enough to see his face in detail, stopped as soon as Pitch emerged from the shadows. He met Pitch’s eyes only briefly, but continued to stare at him intently as he slowly approached.  
  
When he stepped onto the shore where Pitch was, Pitch was no closer to guessing his age than before. At a brief glance he might have been fifteen, though something in the way he moved now, not dancing, made Pitch inclined to guess something a few years younger. His eyes were far more shadowed than either possible age would account for.   
  
So, he had to be afraid of something. Yet Pitch couldn’t read his fears. They were formless things, old, strange, buried far deeper than he would have expected from anyone so alone, so apparently vulnerable.  
  
“You’re looking at me,” the strange boy said, and his voice, too, was unusual, deeper than Pitch had expected. Or was it merely hoarse from disuse?  
  
“Should I not?” Pitch asked. “You’re looking at me, too.”  
  
The boy shifted from foot to foot. “My name’s Jack Frost. No one looks at me. The moon told me my name, but the moon doesn’t look at me. I talk to the wind, but the wind doesn’t look at me either. I used to want people to look at me, or I think I did. But that was a long time ago. I don’t know if I want that anymore. I don’t know if I’d like it. But they need to look at me to know I’m real, don’t they?”  
  
Pitch looked out over the ice. “I think if people paid enough attention, they’d be able to know you were real, even without looking. But I can’t say I’ve had much success with that myself.”  
  
Pitch saw Jack nod out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah,” said Jack. “They  _should_  know. I make the snow, I make the ice patterns. It’s not easy but I like it.”  
  
There was an intensity to Jack’s voice as he said this, an intensity that spoke of a drive to create, and keep creating, a single-minded desire that somehow encompassed the whole world. It reminded Pitch of every moment he had forced away, trying not to think of what he really was or had been. And he didn’t know why. But he could still be curious. “I make things too, Jack, that people don’t always see or appreciate. I could show them to you, and you could show me what you can do. And when you’re around me, I’ll always know that you’re real.”  
  
“Yes,” said Jack. As simple as that.   
  
He must keep all his complexity in the ice, Pitch thought, as let go of some tension he hadn’t even realized he had. For Jack, he could be more than the Boogeyman. With Jack around, he needn’t wonder what he had been before, because he could be something now. And no matter what he found out…he had still found Jack, first. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> kazechama said: This was a great sweet story <3
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: This is very bittersweet, I like it.


End file.
